Sunday, August 24, 2014

Most importantly, Nightengale also says the deal “likely will be broached once again this winter. Stay tuned.”

In today’s column for USA TODAY, Bob Nightengale writes that the Braves and Cubs nearly pulled the trigger on a swap of B.J. Upton and Edwin Jackson at the non-waiver trade deadline, but it never materialized. The Braves would have had to throw in a significant amount of cash to even out the trade, which was ostensibly what halted the deal.

Upton is in the second year of a five-year, $75.25 [million] contract… Jackson, currently sidelined with a strained lat muscle in his right shoulder, is in the second year of a four-year, $52 million deal.

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I would think that pissing off their best hitter by trading his brother away is a real risk that should make Frank Wren hesitate.

Good lord this argument is old. Did Hank Aaron refuse to play because they wouldn't sign Tommy? Did Phil Niekro tank when they cut Joe? They've literally played the vast majority of their careers on other teams. They're brothers, they're not conjoined twins.

I don't really see how this would make sense for the Braves. As bad as B.J. Upton is, who would replace him? Emilio Bonifacio? No thanks. Put Heyward in center, and Ryan Doumit in the outfield? Again, no thanks. B.J. does provide some value to the Braves, in that he's truly one of their three best outfield options. And in the meantime, what would they do with Edwin Jackson? He's not worthy of a spot on their pitching staff.

If the Braves cleared significant payroll by doing this, then it'd be worth discussing, but why would the Cubs be willing to take on enough money for this to be worth it for the Braves?

John Mayberry Jr. has contributed a robust 0.1 WAR this year for the Phils at a very reasonable salary. It would be tough to signficantly improve a division rival by letting the Braves replace B.J. Upton with Mayberry, but we would do it for the right package of prospects.

While Mr. Mayberry appears to be fine in the corners, DRS puts his defense in CF at -16 in about a year's worth. Granted, that might be just enough to keep him replacement level ... and Rfield has Upton at -12 this year ... but I'm reasonably sure Mr. Mayberry is not the solution the Braves seek.

I find myself in the uncomfortable position that, by the fancy numbers, Bonifacio has been about an average player overall and an average CF after all these years of me writing him off and making fun of teams for acquiring him. He's -2.7 WAA for his career, but -2.2 of that was in 2009 so over the last 5 years, he's dead average. True, forced into an everyday role, he'd most likely come up short of average but probably a good bit better than Upton has been and certainly a solid bench player.

I think the idea was that Mayberry would move Heyward to CF. If you accept that the Braves can essentially replace BJ with a corner OF, then obviously you have a lot more potential options, and starting BJ becomes even harder to justify.

Edwin Jackson, however, is not a good outfield option. I agree with #10 that I have no idea how that trade, if Atlanta has to even out the money, would help the Braves. Perhaps you don't worry about breaking up the brothers if you were actually getting something in return for BJ. But if you're not, then why mess with it?

Can Heyward play CF regularly? He doesn't seem to have the right body type. But the numbers have him so outrageously good in the corner that you have to think he could make the move pretty easily. And he's been hitting like a CF too!

Hard to put much stock in this rumor as it comes from Nightengale. As I never get tired of pointing out, this guy reported that the Cubs had decided to keep Hendry after Hendry had already been informed he was being fired.

Todd Cunningham (Gwinnett CF) has hit well in the minors; he won a batting title in AA. There is nothing to suggest he would be an all-star, but nothing to suggest he would hit .200 either. He looks to be a solid .260, walks a little, hits with a little power. His salary is league minimum, giving you the ability to spend money on other needs. That has to be better than BJ.

Heyward plays a decent center field, but I gather that the Braves would rather not play him there unless it's really necessary for fear of injury.

Because there's literally no value in doing so unless you find a bat that slots into a corner that makes up for the defensive loss of shifting Heyward and/or JUpton. Playing Heyward in CF and Bonifacio in RF is literally just rearranging deck chairs. Boneface isn't going to be a notably better defender in RF than he is in CF. You're just moving the potential hole in your defense a couple steps southeast.

I have to think that the organization sees some noticable hole in Todd Cunningham's game. If he were a non-emergency/injury option, he'd have been called up ahead of Phil Gosselin.

If true, I can only assume that it's what Theo does instead of just saying "we're not interested."

Which makes no sense to me either, but whatever, he's the boy genius.

If I were the Braves GM, my response to that would be "What do you think I'm ****ing stupid?", followed by hanging up.

Maybe, but I'd do the same sort of thing if I were GM'ing the Cubs... Jackson is a lost cause in a Cubs uni, but he's the only guy making this much money on the team and the Cubs really don't need to be in any desperate rush to shed him. At minimum, Jackson has a history of returning to semi-usefulness when he changes uniforms for whatever reason.

With Soler probably up in a week and Almora potentially ready later next year, even a dead cat bounce Upton isn't really something the Cubs need.

I can certainly understand why the Braves would say no - though, Minor has about 650 major league innings of 94 ERA+ ball... He was good last year, but not so much the years before or this one.

The Braves did bench BJ last year and play Heyward in center for the last month and a half or so of the season, plus the LDS, but that was an effort to get Heyward, Justin Upton, Brian McCann and Evan Gattis into the lineup at the same time, which is a reasonably compelling goal. Benching BJ this year would be in the service of getting Bonifacio or, perhaps, Phil Gosselin into the lineup, which is much less compelling.

A reasonable person might well point out that the goal is to get BJ out the lineup, and that's certainly fair enough. There might just be a kind of organizational shell shock at play here, a sense that, even after nearly two seasons, it's difficult to comprehend that BJ Upton, however frustrating and inconsistent he might have been in Tampa, really could be this bad. He was basically 2002 Neifi Perez last season.

I don't think anyone in the organization is confused as to what BJ Upton is at this point. They don't know why he crashed (and neither does anyone else that I can tell) but I'm pretty sure they know he's done. But there's no a lot of likelihood that Upton will give you less value than Todd Cunningham. I mean, Todd Cunningham. They cut bait with Dan Uggla because they located a better option in Tommy LaStella. If they locate a better option than BJ, they'll cut bait there too. But they're not going to do that in order to run out Todd Cunningham every day. Nor are they going to cut BJ in order to misalign their entire OF, stick Evan Gattis and his bulging disc back out in LF, and play Christian Bethancourt.

I don't think anyone in the organization is confused as to what BJ Upton is at this point. They don't know why he crashed (and neither does anyone else that I can tell) but I'm pretty sure they know he's done. But there's no a lot of likelihood that Upton will give you less value than Todd Cunningham. I mean, Todd Cunningham. They cut bait with Dan Uggla because they located a better option in Tommy LaStella. If they locate a better option than BJ, they'll cut bait there too. But they're not going to do that in order to run out Todd Cunningham every day. Nor are they going to cut BJ in order to misalign their entire OF, stick Evan Gattis and his bulging disc back out in LF, and play Christian Bethancourt.

The question is, in the midst of a playoff race, why haven't they acquired a solid 1-WAR OF to push BJ to the bench?

Sam Fuld and Josh Willingham have changed hands. Alex Rios must be available.

Sam Fuld and Josh Willingham have changed hands. Alex Rios must be available.

Sam Fuld was traded for Tommy Milone. If the Twins would have taken David Hale in return, that might have gotten done, but Atlanta doesn't have a surplus starting pitching to deal away these days. (The primary failure of the Braves 2014 season is still the loss of three starting pitchers to season ending surgeries, two before they even broke spring training.)

Willingham was traded for a minor league pitcher, Jason Adam. I don't know enough about Adam to find a comp in Atlanta's system, but again, pitching is not something they have to deal right now. (They don't have a lot to deal, period.) Additionally, Willingham doesn't play CF, so trading for him basically means misaligning your defense at two positions (LF, RF) in order to replace BJ every couple of days. (Willingham is a terrible LF defender, which is why he stayed in the AL where he can DH regularly.)

They made a deal with the Cubs, sending a saber-friendly C/3B from the low minors (Victor Caritini) to Chicago in exchange for Bonifacio (a CF option) and James Russell (filling another need on this team, set up relief.)

Seems like the Braves maybe should have asked the Cubs to include either Sweeney or Ruggiano... that probably would cost more - at least, for the latter, who's a fairly decent 4th OF type - but I can't imagine it would have cost more than a teen lottery ticket.

Seems like the Braves maybe should have asked the Cubs to include either Sweeney or Ruggiano... that probably would cost more - at least, for the latter, who's a fairly decent 4th OF type - but I can't imagine it would have cost more than a teen lottery ticket.

You mean as part of the Bonifacio deal, or as part of a hypothetical Jackson/Upton swap? I don't know that Ruggiano can play center (though he is indeed a pretty good 4th OF). Sweeney sort of can, I guess.

Throw in a A-ball lottery ticket and add Sweeney or Ruggiano to the deal.

Caritini was the lottery ticket, I think. The Braves had/have very little room to maneuver financially. They opened spring with +/- 10 mil in "rainy day funds." They always do that, take about 10 mil of cushion into the season in case they want to get a player to help at the deadline. But then Medlen and Beachy went down and they spent all of their cushion and more on Ervin Santana. So at that point, they've maxed out the payroll +5 mil or so. They could let Uggla go because they basically found a 2B (or two) for "free" in LaStella and Gosselin. They probably can't do that with Upton, and even Sweeney's rather moderate salary is likely a no-go without getting SOME relief of Upton's deal.

It's really hard to compete when you lose three of your assumed starters to season ending injury (Medlen, Beachy, Floyd) and both of your "big" contracts (Uggla, Upton) are absolute heat sinks.

So who are some of these freely available replacement level center fielders? I want names.

Just flipping through the list of people who have played CF in AAA this season, I imagine it wouldn't cost a ton to land one of Darin Mastroianni, Antoan Richardson, Grady Sizemore, Jason Bourgeois, Justin Christian, Julio Borbon, Jordan Danks, Ezequiel Carrera, or Logan Schafer. Or, heck, Cameron Maybin.

Cleveland got Chris Dickerson almost for free. It's not that tough to get a CF who's too old to be a prospect but can chew up 300 at-bats without making himself or the team look ridiculous.

edit to add: Maybin may not be free, but he's put up 0.1 WAR since the start of the 2013 season. I imagine the Padres would be okay with getting out from under the $16M they still owe him.

The rumor for a while there was that Chicago wanted Mike Minor and for the Braves to take on Jackson's contract in exchange for taking on BJ's contract. That's a big ask.

That would be mindblowingly stupid for Atlanta.

I'm not so sure. A few weeks ago Mike Minor was struggling horribly, and he's since stabilized, so that's the context, within which the Braves may have decided not to move forward.

So, anyway, if one assumes Mike Minor will make around $6m next year, $8m the year after, and $12m in his final year of arb, that's $26m more due to Minor, plus $46m due to BJ. Jackson is due $22m. So, would the Braves rather have Mike Minor and BJ for $72m, or Edwin Jackson for $22m and an additional $50m to spend over the next three years? I guess it depends on (a) how much you think Mike Minor is worth, (b) whether you think the Braves will extend him, and (c) what else you think you can buy with that $50m in order to replace Minor and BJ.

Minor is the crux of all this, and he's a difficult pitcher to assess. He was mediocre through the middle of 2012, really good from mid-2012 until mid-2014, and sucked for two months by the time this deal was supposedly discussed. He's done better lately, but he's the kind of pitcher who can put a team like the Braves in a difficult position when it comes to arbitration. Right now he's not a strong candidate for an extension because he's been all over the place this season, but by the time he becomes a better candidate it'll likely be too late to do so.

So, anyway, if one assumes Mike Minor will make around $6m next year, $8m the year after, and $12m in his final year of arb, that's $26m more due to Minor, plus $46m due to BJ. Jackson is due $22m. So, would the Braves rather have Mike Minor and BJ for $72m, or Edwin Jackson for $22m and an additional $50m to spend over the next three years? I guess it depends on (a) how much you think Mike Minor is worth, (b) whether you think the Braves will extend him, and (c) what else you think you can buy with that $50m in order to replace Minor and BJ.

But, if Minor is bad, he won't get that money. Either they'll non-tender him, or the arb award will be lower.

But, if Minor is bad, he won't get that money. Either they'll non-tender him, or the arb award will be lower

In which case the Braves are even better off - it means they traded a bad pitcher to get a good chunk of salary relief. If Minor makes $6m next year and then pitches badly, the braves would have given up BJ and a bad pitcher to get a bad pitcher and $25-$30m worth of salary relief.